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Lending Books, Amazon Style

Amazon is in talks with book publishers about launching a digital book rental service in a similar vein to the popular movie offering Netflix, according to reports.

My reaction, even after reading this slender piece a few times, can be summed up into one word:

Huh.

I’d love to be part of those meetings between Amazon and publishers. After the rows over agency pricing for eBooks (like the infamous Ken Follett one), I’m sure the publishing business is just overjoyed with the prospect of having their books lent out on a flat fee basis, even if it is limited to older titles. With the fall of physical bookstores, Amazon holds such tremendous power that this sounds like it will play out like The Godfather: they are going to make publishers an offer they can’t refuse. With 40% of the eReader device market, a tablet on the way, and a worldwide leader in eBook sales, what publisher wants to hold back their books from this lending service if another major publisher makes a deal?

Even the most cynical of publishers recognizes the power of profile on the (now electronic) book shelf: if you’re not on there, you are not visible to your readers. Yes, the big name authors will continue to thrive, but it is the midlist and emerging authors that will get stomped to pieces if they are excluded from the service. Given Amazon’s suggestion ability, a title missing potentially means a title not read, an author undiscovered, and a connection missed.

What does this mean for libraries? Nothing, really, as I see it. The library tax or fee is still cheaper than the Amazon Prime subscription, even if it is not by much. Amazon has kept their Kindle off of the library scope save for the announcement of working with Overdrive. Suddenly, twenty six eBook checkouts aren’t such a bad thing when a patron could just get an older title as part of their Amazon Prime account.

Personally, I’m particularly curious as to how Overdrive would take this bit of news since there are hard-to-ignore parallels between what they do now and what Amazon proposes to do. As much as they have streamlined the downloading process for their titles, they can’t beat Amazon on infrastructure. Why would you fool around with the library’s website or the Overdrive app when the Kindle would have everything be a button away? Sure, it might not be new releases, but since libraries can only purchase so many licenses, impatient eReader users may just buy the book anyway.

I wonder if libraries are looking better and better to publishers with each passing eBook market development. They might not get the best deal compared to companies like Apple, Sony, or Amazon, but we’ll still respect you in the morning.